For those who were fans pre-1988

[Frezo]

Re: For lthose who were fans pre-1988

Goodell needs to air at least one of the tapes to show people what's on them. Take the mystery out of it. These tapes may be a blessing in diguise because Goodell was accused of hiding something when he destroyed the 1st batch. Now the stolen tapes get shown to the public so nobody can accuse the Patriots or Goodell of tampering with them when these tapes don't show much of anything. As far as this hurting the Patriots long term I don't think it will. Heck Belichick just won coach of the year with all this nonsense going on. Life is a pendulum and you'll start to see the momentum start to swing the other way. You're now seeing it with mediots like Mike Wilbon saying enough is enough and at some point the Patriots needs to START TALKING ON THIS ISSUE. The Patriots are to blame for their complete mishandling of this from day 1. They need to start defending themselves. Their silence (sorry but press releases don't quite make it) has killed them and has allowed the media witchhunt to fill the empty void.

That's an interesting take. The assumption is that by revealing a tape to the public, it lessens their mystique in an attempt to prove that nothing really bad was going on. I realize these tapes are old and at least in our eyes have little value football wise. It's possible that a football professional could extract a few tidbits of useful information regarding techniques and tendancies though. So which team has their past sideline antics exposed to the other 31 teams of the league? In fact this may be a pretty good reason for none of the tapes ever going public and may also explain why Goodell was so prompt in destroying the first batch.

 

[TruthSeeker]

In a word, no.

The only real question is how long it will take for people to acknowledge the true gravity of the Patriot's cheating (minimal). I used to think it would be about a year or two. Now, I'm thinking it's probably more like five years or more. What I've learned from message boards is that there are a lot of biased people out there who can't objectively assess facts to save their lives.

 

[nashvillepatsfan]

Are you getting the feeling that the long-term effects of Spygate are going to have a similar effect on the Pats as the Michael Jackson tour?

I don't mean Kraft will go broke or the NFl will take over the franchise or anything, but sometimes things take on a (nightmare) life of their own.

I don't see spygate ending on Tuesday. I hope I'm worng, and I won't know until Friday because I'll be backpacking, but I think we fans are as naive as Chuck Sullivan to think this will end.

We are working from logic, and there is no logic to this.

Remember, there was never any evidence, not one single independent lab test, that showed cyclomates were any different than saccharin. Cyclomates had a bad image due to a single test. A combination of cyclomates and saccharin were shown to cause cancer. For no apparent reason, cyclomates were selected as the bad guy.

Why single out cyclomates (Patriots) when logic told you saccharin (Colts, any other team) did the same thing? No reason, but cyclomates never beat the PR rap. And this was in an era when PR and perception wasn't one-millionth of what it is today.

Just a (fearful) thought.

what the hell is a 'cyclomate' ? is that some new kind of fitness equipment the pats just installed at the stadium?

 

[tuckeverlasting]

what the hell is a 'cyclomate' ? is that some new kind of fitness equipment the pats just installed at the stadium?

i think he means cyclamate which was a controversial sweetning product from the 70's-80's.